The director of the Tech3 team, Nicolas Goyon, expressed his disappointment after a disheartening performance during the Thailand Grand Prix of MotoGP, the first race with the new CEO Guenther Steiner at the helm.
Despite high expectations, the KTM satellite team only managed four points, thanks to Enea Bastianini’s twelfth position. This situation was aided by the retirements of other riders, allowing Bastianini to advance over debutant Diogo Moreira.
His teammate Maverick Vinales had a challenging weekend, finding himself in very low positions, and ended up 19th after struggling to match the pace of the riders in front of him.
“It is clearly discouraging. This is Guenther’s first weekend with us, and the best we could offer him is this mediocre display,” Goyon declared to Canal+.
The director acknowledged that, unlike the good tests conducted in Sepang, the team has not been able to adapt to the Thai circuit. “Last year we had similar difficulties; perhaps with new riders there was less pressure. Now, we are finding many challenges in finding the right setup,” he added.
Both Bastianini’s and Vinales’ qualifying sessions were a headache, as they failed to advance to Q2. Goyon insisted on the urgent need to increase performance during qualifying sessions: “If we don’t improve here, it will be hard to aim for better results in the race.”